ROW80 Round 1 - 22nd Update

It's been another busy week, where more than once I have wondered what I've got myself into lol I've continued reading journal articles as part of my research, and I've written about another two pages of my literature review. My fourth steampunk character hasn't had much progress made apart from a few alterations to his costume, but I'm hoping to finish him tomorrow and at least start on the fifth character (which will probably take a while since some of his costume/equipment is quite detailed and complex). Still, at least it will be fun (I hope).

We had a workshopping meeting yesterday, and though only two others turned up, we had a good lot of writerly discussion. I didn't get the part of my novella I was working on done in time to workshop, but talking about the piece we were workshopping got me thinking about important elements of my own story, particularly in relation to research. In historical fiction or even in fantasy based in a historical-type world (medieval, ancient Egypt, feudal Japan etc), it is important to have your facts right so that the world you create still feels like it could really exist. And it brings home the old adage that you have to know the rules before you can break them hehe

Also, since the meeting was at my house, my fellow writers got to see firsthand how soft cuddly scary Judgemental Dog is. (he was very intimidating... made them give him lots of pats)

Since yesterday I've been continuing with chapter 1, revising some bits and rewriting others from scratch. For a long time, chapter 1 was more or less complete, but there was one scene that always really bothered me; no matter what I did with it, I just couldn't make it ring true, and since it was an important scene (when the belongings of the protagonist's fiance are found abandoned and she is told that he must have drowned), it's something that I couldn't afford to do halfarsed. Then someone suggested that it could perhaps be shown just as powerfully if it were not shown (in much the same way deaths/severe injuries in ancient Greek plays usually happened off-stage), and simply alluded to with the main character's behaviour throughout the rest of the story. Though I haven't made much progress in terms of word count, I think I've finally made some real progress with the chapter; I'm still writing it, but the words are flowing a lot easier than they were with the other method.

On a completely unrelated but awesome note... New album from Within Temptation! *bounces*

I guess I won't be letting Rex read any Stephen King books...

See how the other ROW80ers are going here.